****

Dear HH,
I really want to love those cute little Drums and fine fellas The Soft Pack, but I’m not sure if they’re capable of a long-term commitment before they disappear into the advertising agency jobs from whence they came.
Regards,
Dubious

Dear Dubious
Not a problem. When the inevitable happens and the rich musician kids retreat with their coke bloat to NY creative agencies, that just gives you another opportunity to reminisce, with the tired air of the forsaken, the glory days of a band who Sold Out. This is good because you get to appear contrary while everyone else shits all over the band for quitting music. If you disagree with popular thinking, people seem to believe you’ve thought about the topic more than them, and are therefore more right about it.
And really, what band ever gives you more than one or two good albums these days? If they lasted past that, you’d probably hate them anyway. So it’s win/win.

****

Dear Hipster Helpline,
Can I get a perm? Will that make me more interesting?
Curious Curls

Dear Curious Curls,
Yes you can and of course it will. Who you are as a person has almost no impact on how interesting you are to other people. It is solely appearance. Never forget this, and please preach it to your children (should you choose to adopt from a third world nation of course).

****

Dear Hipster Helpline
I watched Glee and I laughed. What does this mean? Is there any way that I can use this for hipster cred?
Love,
Tentative Gleek

Hi there,
Not really. Keep it to yourself. Guilty pleasures are more fun anyway. If someone sees the DVD at your house, just say you’re holding it for a friend, and then mock your fake friend for being such a dick (…and then cry yourself to sleep, dreaming of the day you can be FREE TO LOVE THE BASTARD GENRE OF MUSICAL COMEDY IN PEACE.)

I know there are tirades against her single-mindedness; she sings exclusively about the kind of obsessive love you discover at 17. Where affection, possessiveness and insecurity are interchangeable, and love is more complicated than it ever will be again. That teenage intensity is normal. You grow out of it like you grow out of sulking and tantrums or saying you’re political, like you grow out of emotional myopia. The brilliance of Crazy For You is that it embraces the secret truth that maybe you don’t actually grow out of anything.

I’m not going to say this is a blanket truth. It clearly isn’t. I have emotionally mature friends (younger than I) who can hold the concepts of love, independence, trust, and security in their brain all at the same time. They are brilliant. What I’m suggesting, perhaps, is that Best Coast have made an anthemic album for girls – and guys? I don’t have the data but I’m sure there is appeal there – for those who do not have their shit together, emotionally, fiscally, romantically or mentally.

I think there’s now a certain congratulatory aspect to being fucked up – the more public, the more you’re lauded for your resilience and honesty. And what Best Coast’s Bethany Cosentino is able to capitalise on is the pride of owning your flaws, and the exhilaration of that spilling over into self-indulgence. And Crazy For You is a self-indulgent, and largely selfish, album. It is bratty, obsessive, and repetitive, but for all that, it is the closest thing I’ve heard to those white noise days, the nothingness days, and some very awful, central part of what it is at times to be a girl.

The songs are so similar to each other that it almost passes as a concept album, or perhaps just one 30 minute song instead of 13 messy, catchy, whirlwinds. She repeats herself and she pines, she gets high and she gets paranoid, she doesn’t leave the house, has a one-track mind, and mistakes absence for abandonment. She says things (over and over again – as my feverishly brilliant friend Emma, who loves the album, put it: “She’s great, but damn, bitch needs a thesaurus”) that I have never thought to vocalise: lame things, sad things, obsessive things – but that speaks to my curious obsession with very unbecoming and caustic honesty being made public. There is something so very addictive in listening to her un-self consciously document her failure, her pettiness, because I want to do the same.

The album feels, however, at a crossroads in terms of a feminist reading. It does nothing to further a feminist dialogue by any stretch of the imagination; there is no strength to the voice that speaks, there is no request for equality in love. It’s more a childlike series of requests and observations about herself. It doesn’t think too far ahead and is stubbornly planted in the moment. But the overly cynical part of my brain keeps suggesting that maybe at the heart of it is just dumbness. A dumb and narcissistic introspection that is so easy to relate to because it is unflattering honesty with no attempt at resolution. Other female artists (PJ Harvey, Cocorosie, Sia, Portishead, Karen O, Tegan and Sara, many others) sing from a point of analysis, of reflection, of context, that makes writing about loss, insecurity and possessiveness stark and intelligent instead of bratty. And that analysis is what Best Coast doesn’t have.

But the flipside of all this is the painful and universal truth to what Cosentino is saying. It might not be on the posters for Independent Women, but I know that very stubbornness and obsession she sings of is often infuriatingly present, plaguing good intentions, ruining perfectly good relationships.

Ultimately the lo-fi beach overdrive sound is so lazy and gorgeous, her voice so earnest, the sentiment so childishly wrong, sweet and relatable, that you can forgive and even thank Best Coast for making an album like this; a guilty pleasure, something to wallow in, something to compare yourself to, something to identify with.

****

Dear Hipster Helpline
My ex keeps calling – she dumped me but she wants to be tight pals now. Too soon! But I can’t help myself from answering. What should I do?
Love
Sad Simon

Dear Simon,
The most effective method I’ve found is to change their name in your phone to something like DO NOT ANSWER THIS, YOU DUMB BITCH or REMEMBER HOW SHIT YOU FELT LAST TIME YOU ANSWERED THIS CALL? It’s like having a clone that can yell at you for doing dumb stuff.

I’ve even thought about extending it to keeping laminated cards in my purse that say things like “DO NOT KISS THAT MAN. HE IS VERY UNATTRACTIVE AND RUDE”, “HEY MORON, YOU’RE ORDERING FOR TWO, NOT TWENTY.” and “NO, YOU DO NOT NEED TO SPEND $47 AT THE BARGAIN BASEMENT. YOU WILL NEVER USE THIS SHIT.”

I dunno, I’m pretty lazy though.

****

Dear Hipster Helpline
I’m generally quite happy. How can I appear more sarcastic and bitter? Do I need sadness in my life? Because I don’t really have any.
Perky

Dear Perky
You absolutely do not need sadness. What you do need, however, is to learn to act like you have sadness.

Try thinking about Sookie Stackhouse performing, in that awful southern accent, spoken word poetry by that guy in the beret that used to be on Hey Hey It’s Saturday.

I find that always gives me a look of general displeasure.

****

Dear Hipster Helpline
How much leopard print is too much?
Spotty

Dear Spotty,
When you feel the urge to stalk gazelles, it’s time to stop. Otherwise, go for it.

****

Dear Hipster Helpline,
In my efforts to be the best Hipster ever, I just pick up new bands of Myspace that I like.
They’re amazing and underground and totally indie and no one knows them, only problem is, they all sound the same – like they’ve stolen a chorus from Sonic Youth and made off with it.
HELP!
Suspicious

Dear Suspicious
I know the feeling, it’s that uncomfortable feeling that you’re on the edge of a revelation that is going to make you feel very, very weird, like you’re a dude who thought he was straight slowly realising he’s into that one tall, fake-tanned guy that works at every supre (who, I’ve just been informed, is there as security because “obviously cheap sluts like to steal.” Ha. Good.)
What you need to do is stop those suspicions where they are – just go about your business of name-dropping them at every opportunity and try not to think about . Hell, make new ones up. No-one is ever going to background check them, and if they did they sure as hell aren’t going to start admitting they think they all sound the same.
You’re apples.

****

Dear Hipster Helpline,
I enrolled in Political Science and Life Drawing to impress a guy, except i hate politics. I prefer economics and maths (maybe some english lit if I’m pushed) but that seemed a bit consumerist and I wanted him to like me.
I’ve passed the census date so I’m stuck with it, and I’ve just discovered he all ready has a girlfriend. She’s doing Russian Literature and Installation Art.
How am I going to make the most of it?
UniBOOsity

Dear UniBOOsity
Poli Sci and Life Drawing? Can I get a what what from every one in the hizzle doing Liberal Arts?!
Of course he has a girlfriend. They all do. And of course she’s a Russian-speaking artist. They all are. She’s also probably athiest, blonde, and very bendy.
Look, you bought flour and water, you may as well make bread. Or something. With the awkward combination of political science and life drawing, you could become one of those artists who draw those political cartoons that no-one gets.
YOU’RE WELCOME.

****

Dear Hipster Helpline,
HEY. Vodka comes in a goon box now! Trashy or awesome?
FancyGoon

Dear Fancy Goon
We’re obviously getting totally screwed in the vodka-to-blood-orange ratio, but I agree the novelty value is quite high.
Once the honeymoon period wears off we’ll realise we’re paying $30 and only getting quarter the vodka we would if we’d just bought a bottle. Lucky us hipsters are just rich kids dressing poor, or I’d have half a mind to…uhhhh *meh*. Where’s the basil pesto dip and brie…

****

Dear Hipster Helpline,

Should I get a fixie?

Love, Bi Cycle.
Dear Bi

Well, you need to weigh up the importance of being seen on one against the importance of not dying. If you were to meet your single-geared death on one, however, you would have died for a Hipster cause. They’d probably canonise you.

****

Dear Hipster Helpline,

I really, really like CCs a whole lot. Do you?

Thanks,
Chip

Dear Chip,

Why yes. I like them just fine thank you.
They make excellent Muskateer hats for my little cactus plants, also.

****

Dear Hipster Helpline,

Over the years I’ve come to notice that there is a large emphasis placed on remembering movie quotes, and saying them instead talking normally in a conversation. I am bad at remembering them.
What can I do to be cool?

Not David Stratton.

Dear Not David (…Margaret?),

You could try just learning one or two, and never socialising with the same people more than once, though that does sort of defeat the purpose I suppose. I would just laugh when everyone else laughs, and sometimes look sad – even cry – when everyone else laughs to make them think you’re deep or troubled, and you shall do well, young padawan. (Oh, an extra tip: calling people ‘padawan’ makes nerd guys want to hold your hand – true story)

****

Dear Hipster Helpline
I can’t help but notice the abundance of 3-legged dogs in Newtown.  Have I missed something? My dog has 4 legs – what if he gets teased?

Dear Quivering Quadruped,

So you’re worried he’ll be the laughing stock of your Dog Park picnic punk-knitting circle or your  vegan recipe-swap headbanging meet just for having four functional legs, hey?

I’ve noticed the same thing about the 3 legged dogs, and while I was suspicious at first, I think that happily it’s just that more people are adopting poor little run-over doggies from the RSPCA, which is of course a most excellent thing to do.

If you get any grief for your fully-functional puppy, just say that he is disadvantaged in some other, less tangible way. Dyslexic? Agrophobic? I’ll leave it with you.

****

Dear Hipster Helpline

Sometimes at gigs, I just really want to sit down.
That’s bad right?
Dear Lazy Bones,

Acknowledging that discomfort registers for you is not great, no.
Much like goths who have trained their sweat glands to shut down in the summertime so as to preserve the porcelain foundation and dark, whimsical eyeliner, hipsters need to man up and look comfortable and slightly bored in any given situation REGARDLESS of what’s going on around them. It’s why they don’t let hipsters join the military. All that disaffection and awkward leaning with guns isn’t good for border protection.

For you, I’d suggest looking SO apathetic that you can’t even stand up (this will be at your own peril at gigs though).

****

Dear Hipster Helpline,
I have rocked the same hip hairstyle for a very long time, and now I’m growing it longer into another hip style, but the in-between phase is not very hip!
How can I remain cool in this stage of metamorphosis?

Yours Truly,
Bobby-Pin Dependent Female

Dear Bobby,

If you have disposable income, I would say a shit-long weave. Has Tyra taught us nothing?

Otherwise you’ll just need to tread very carefully with your general hipsterdom, and be on top form at all times, to draw attention away from the misfortune atop your pretty head.

Know the name of every garage band on your block, know the release dates of every obscure underground film, talk at length about Freja Beha and Nico in the same conversation (actually this goes also for every day you just don’t have perfectly messed hair, FYI).

****

Dear HH,
When I wear my jeans (all the time) my legs go numb and I can no longer feel them! Are my skinnies too skinny? Should I look to bring back oversized jeans of the 90′s?
Thnx
Midnight

Dear Midnight,
Relax, the cutting off of one’s circulation is just God’s way of saying you’re doing it right. And by god I mean the Horrors.

****

Dear Hipster Helpline,
I told my friend I was shaving half my head last week, and this week she turns up with that haircut! That’s not cool, is it?

Dear Luscious Locks,
Well, theoretically it’s poor form for her to mow your grass like that, but you’re going to have to man up if you want to succeed in this casually apathetic Hipster world. If you’re going to get mad every time someone copies what you’re doing (and if we’re honest, what you’re doing because you saw someone else doing it first), you may as well just quit now.
The Hipster world is like a particularly resilient strain of Herpes. Pass it on.

****

Dear Hipster Helpline,
My girlfriend thinks I’m in a band, but I’m not. I can’t even play an instrument. We met because she thought I was in the band that had just played and she’s really hot so I couldn’t say no.
What now?
Lyin’ Ryan.

Hi Ryan, If you have access to a guitar or even one of those zippy little sample box thingies (that’s the technical name obviously), and can hold it without dropping it, that is as close as you need to get to actually being in a band. Flick your hair and look moody. If the jig is ever well and truly up, just say you’ve left the band citing artistic differences and that you’re working on more art rock solo stuff (see, this is covering the possibility that she might force you to play for her one day, you can sound like incomprehensible shit and she has to pretend to “get it”. Ahhh the rules that govern us, they’re such a bitch.) Yeah, you’re golden, don’t fret.

Dear Hipster Helpline,
I love grabbing random pre-loved goods off the kerb side and from skip bins but my boyfriend always freaks out and thinks people are judging us. Are they??
Sidewalk Sally

Dear Sidewalk Sally,
Look the short answer is yes they are. Of course they are. To the untrained eye, you’re rifling through someone’s garbage. You may as well be barefoot and digging for cigarette butts in trash cans on King St.

What those people (those ones with the untrained eyes I mean) don’t understand, however, is that this rubbish you’re self-consciously pawing through while your other half taps his foot is actually going to put you three steps ahead of your aspiring Hipster friends. Don’t call it rubbish, call it ‘reclaimed kitsch’ or ‘appropriated consumerist archeology’. Grab that Ker-Plunk game with half the sticks missing, tuck the gold and black silk print of a silhouetted palm tree under one arm and hold your head high…and the best part is you can sell it all on Etsy for $200 a pop when you get sick of that dirty shit cluttering up your house.

****

Dear Hipster Helpline,
The pants-optional CEO of American Apparel is claiming that “Hipster is over. Preppy is back.” (http://thejamesperkins.wordpress.com/2010/08/20/hipster-is-dead/) I’m not ready for this. What do we do?
Love,
Uncertain

Dear Uncertain,
So the guy who sells us sheer arseless lace bodysuits is saying that Hipster is over? That’s like the makers of pre-mixed colourful vodka drinks saying that dancing around your handbag is over.
Don’t fret. Dov Charney is just making noise about rebranding to sound like he’s staying ahead of the game. That preppie pleat-and- boat-shoe look IS hipster, just a newer, more Aryan strand. Don’t sell your beaded leotard, or your sombreros or your flares just yet. Sheer arseless lace bodysuits never really die…

****

Dear Hipster Helpline,
I totally overdid it on the vino in front of a boy I really want to be my boyfriend. How do I come back from that?
Red Wine Sadface

Dear Wino,
Well, how bad are we talking? ‘Stained teeth and lots of giggles’ bad? ‘Spontaneous belting out of Toto’s Africa when someone brings up Africa in conversation’ bad? ‘Shit where are my knickers, it’s only 8.30 and we’re still at the restaurant’ bad? Because whilst I have to sympathise with you if you’ve publicly lost your knickers before 9pm (mainly because I speak from excruciating experience; no, I won’t extrapolate, suffice to say I’m no longer welcome at Papa Luigi’s Pasta Emporium and the charges are still pending), that is quite bad, yes.

I guess we can only hope that your boy was slightly buzzed too and won’t remember the extent of your shenanigans, or who knows, perhaps he finds your sober personality vile and welcomes this libidinous, knickerless mess.

****

Dear Hipster Helpline,

I’m about to move into a new house and have a spare room for rent. When interviewing people for the room is it wrong to make one of the rental criteria a portfolio of the vintage and retro furniture they own??
Regards,
Foot Stool Snob

Dear Foot Stool Snob

That is the most fantastic thing I’ve heard in the last 3 hours. Never change.
And you know I wouldn’t stop there. I would extend that process to making new friends, getting a new job, seeking a new partner. Always insist they have an up-to-date portfolio of anything they own that might be of worth to you. Atari games, sneakers, instruments, kittens, hot brothers. Let’s all just start being more honest about what we want from people.

****

Dear Hipster Helpline,

I just don’t get the big deal about Arcade Fire. They don’t sound that crash hot to me.

Arcane Fire

Dear Arcane Fire,

You’d do well to not bring that up in public, lest you be mocked literally to the death.
Basically, that is the equivalent of saying in the 90s that you just don’t think Nirvana were that good, or saying in the 60s that you just don’t think Bowie was that swinging, or saying in the 1400s that those Gregorian Monks sound like one big noise to you. You can’t fight this one, babe, 64 million people probably aren’t wrong (however, 62 million of them are actually in the band, so take that with a grain of salt)

****

Dear HH,

I have a facebook stalking problem. As in, I do it all the time, and I always end up getting caught because I forget and bring things up in conversation that I’ve only found out from facebook stalking.

Love,
Loose Lips

Dear Loose Lips (*snigger*),

Oh my god I do this all the time. Seriously. All the time. It’s embarrassing and there is very little you can do other than blame it on the grapevine. Our grapevine is pretty hardcore, luckily, so this is an entirely believable excuse for the most part. Or if that’s not going to cut it, just look mysterious and say, “I hear lots of things.” If you’re feeling theatrical, it adds a certain something if you then slowly back away from them without breaking eye contact.

MEETING PEOPLE IS EASY

Part of the problem indie kids have is that there is such an emphasis on effortless cool that any kind of visible attempt to work at something is instantly disregarded as being inauthentic and lame. There might be furious kicking under the water, but it’s all casual cynicism and raised eyebrows above the surface.

We celebrate the alienation that lots of indie kids felt growing up, and understand that our fellow freaks in high school are for the most part now interesting, progressive, awesome people, and the cool kids in high school are for the most part unbelievably…not quite those things (jokes on them, this is old news), but we have always known that there was something bigger than our hometowns, and greater than the small idea of cool as enforced by the kids that were pretty and mean. That resistant knowledge in the face of their archetypal sameness was a red flag for taunts of aloofness, snobbery and lameness. We were told we weren’t cool, but we knew we were. But intrinsic in this process, and also an inherent part of the indie subculture, is the internalising of effort. Those tags of aloofness weren’t necessarily incorrect, but that is a part of being cool. Trying is what the other kids did.

The indie forerunner, grunge, was the complete embodiment of a slacker culture. And like a bad weave in the indie subculture’s hair, grunge is all tied in with who we are and where we came from. Grunge was the peak of no effort, but in the translations handed down that turned into effortless. It’s the difference between actually wearing the same flannelette shirt for 3 weeks (grunge) and simply looking like you’ve worn the same flannelette shirt for 3 weeks (indie). Indie kids in the post-grunge late 90s were (from my own experience) selective, righteous and defiant. The progression in the early 2000s was to a subculture that was more tolerant of differences in things like style or history, as long as the attitude to music and being a good person was consistent. A shameful pop-loving past is celebrated now, not hidden. Now, anything and everyone is indie, and the word itself is so diluted that it means a hundred things to a hundred people. In some ways this is great, because more diversity = more influences = more interesting cultural products. In other ways this is incredibly frustrating, as anyone with fake glasses can claim indie-ness and completely misrepresent who you are.

One of the consistent things though is that inherited need to seem effortless. One of the biggest ways this affects our community – or at least, the angle I’m taking today – is that we seem to be the only subculture too embarrassed to acknowledge that meeting people isn’t always easy. Because of that casual aloofness, we’re supposed to just fall into each other and not care about what it means or think too far ahead. How does that help when you’re a shy hipster nerd who finds it hard to talk to people? How does that work when you’re only meeting drunkenly once or twice and then never again? How does that work when you want to hang out with someone not only by the light of exit signs?

My simple solution: Indie Online Dating.

If it were accepted as a thing, it wouldn’t be embarrassing, which means the clause about effortlessness in the indie contract we all apparently signed could be waived. And imagine the fun you could have with the About You parts! Research into Online Dating has revealed you typically have fairly lacklustre options for body type, interests etc. We would have custom built ones!

Body Type: Courtney Love through to Beth Ditto (female). Julian Casablancas through to Ben Gibbard c. 2005 (male).
Orientation: MALE: Josh Homme (straight), Kele Okereke (gay indie), Jake Shears (gay pop), Brian Molko (bi). FEMALE: Allison Mosshart (straight), Tegan and/or Sara (gay indie), Sia (gay pop), Peaches (bi)
Words that describe you: Awkward / Caustic / Existential / Twee / Ironic / etc
Interests: zinemaking / dancing / rioting / baking / guitar holding / DJing (everyone chooses this one) / cynicism / etc
Music: List 5 bands that sum you up best

Profile photos would be iPhone polaroids, bio’s would be in haikus, devoid of phrases like “just seeing what’s out there” or “rly wna find sum1 2 luv n dat luvs me 4 who I am xxxx”. Interest could be shown by sending other users a virtual pair of glittery cons, or fake glasses, or tickets to Xiu Xiu.
A number of my friends have formed the basis of their relationships on Myspace (ew. Back in the day, obvi) and Facebook. There is actually a program that can predict who you’re going to date next based on your social media interaction, with allegedly some degree of accuracy. There is something much easier about talking without actually being in the presence of your intended – there is a freedom and a sense of space that can make for more relaxed and interesting conversations, and the lack of tone means that pesky effortlessness is much more easily achieved. Faceless dating: the ultimate in hipster apathy.

I’ll meet you by the speakers. I’ll be the bored-looking girl in liquid eyeliner.